A word about TJ Robertson – TJ Digital – AI Optimization

So – I was really intrigued when TJ – who says he’s a master of AI “optimization” called out using ranking in Search Engines to also rank in LLMs a trick. This is a kind of really odd, banal and emotive statement to make: after all – if you’re ranking in a search engine like Google or Bing and an LLM tool (and LLM tools aren’t really “AI”) – thne how is it a “trick” if Perplexity uses that ranked result to include you in Perplexity results?

Of course its not a trick. what it is – is highly inconvenient to TJ when he’s trying to paint LLMs as some magical alterntivate but he keeps getting undone by the fact that LLMs aren’t actually search engines, and use Search Engines to rank stack content.

Instead – TJ – like many others is really projecting. TJ knows this happens and he prefers that “AI” or LLM tools use some magic to “know” that you’re really an “Authority” – although Google is so good at it the LLMs just use them to do it – but because he’;s coming from a an emotive PoV : which is that he personally hates PageRank and SEO – his ego or his bravado is providing the logic, hence the logical breakdown.

I could be wrong.

But there are also lots of whitepapers about why LLMs aren’t search engines and can’t do it – from the LLM teams.

There are lots of people saying that LLMS.txt isn’t a real idea

But to people who emotionally connect themselves to the idea that LLMs MUST vanquish Google/SEO/PageRank – thats all the evidence they need.

So no doubt – me writing a reply like this is just a trick. I’ve clearly conned whatever search tool you used to find this – and thats why its ranking. I wonder what TJ wil say about that?

Search

Recent Posts